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The "cultural genocide" haunting Australian Uyghurs - ABC
| O'Connor | Adam Turan From the Australia East Turkestan Association. He is with us now in the studio. Adam welcome. Thank you very much for your time. You have had four members of your family at some point possibly interned in different levels of camps. Who was the first member of your family |
| Turan | That was my older sister. She was detained 2016. She was working for the government for 20 plus years and she was the first from our family to be taken. Then they detained my father and one of my brother, then they released my sister 10 days after they detained my father and brother and then they remained in the camps themselves for some period of time. My sister was held about 11 months and my brother and my dad was, I'm not sure, maybe 11 months. |
| O'Connor | Were you able to learn if anything from them about what was happening to them in those camps. |
| Turan | They are unable to sleep and they had to sit in the hard bench for up to 10 hours and praising the Chinese government and the president of the China, Xi Jing Ping and didn't they won't even give them proper food, so yeah I've got my last picture of my dad before he was detained and the last picture after he was released. There's a big difference between two yeah and there we see that picture he was released and then it wasn't long after that before he passed away. He was released around the Aug 2, sudden I came and he passed away around September by 5-6 weeks after he was released from the camp. |
| O'Connor | Is there any doubt in your mind that he died as a result of what happened in those camps. |
| Turan | They of course because he never been to hospitalised. He has a good health never been to the hospital and he doesn't have health issues at all, so as we can see from his two pictures we can compare like 10 months or 11 months between two pictures unwell. |
| O'Connor | So you said used to work for the government. The Chinese government claims that they have been sent to these camps for re-education because they've become, their being part of a terrorist activity. Were any of your family ever involved in that kind of activity? |
| Turan | From my parents raised four of us we went to Uni, started in the university in Xinjiang is Turkestan and all of us work for the government sectors so we never been involved any terrorist activities. |
| O'Connor | Just going about your lives like ordinary citizen. How hard is it for you to now be living in Australia? You come here, lose contact with your family in this way. How do you keep in touch with them are you able to work out if they're OK? |
| Turan | Is really hard at this age and they 21st century 2019 the people can make a FaceTime for example or social medias but we lost all of them so last two years I lost contact with my family member. The last time I talked to my mom was she was at their own political story so that was my last don't call me again because I won't be able to pick up your phone and she said I'm at the, she didn't say police station, but she said a local council office too. The very helpful young guys like you helping me so assisting me teaching me not to pick up the calls from overseas. |
| O'Connor | Was it almost like a coded message to you? |
| Turan | Yes that that it was not safe for her |
| O'Connor | So you have not spoken to her since? Your sister, your brother, no one from my family? |
| Turan | So I got all of these information that my mom is not in the camps she's outside the camps. I got all of these information from third party for from another friend and who got the information from my family members. |
| O'Connor | And how dangerous is that for them to pass on those kind of messages to you? |
| Turan | It could be gaoled, could be sent to the internment camps. That's some one of these reasons that China is excusing, you know if you have family members overseas or if you contact if you contact with the people from overseas will be gaoled. So they could be gaoled. So that's why they can't directly contact with them. |
| O'Connor | Do you see what is happening there is some form of ethnic cleansing? |
| Turan | Yeah definitely be cause what the Chinese government claim is we re-educate these people. And what about the hundreds of thousands of intellectuals of university professors and the well-known businessman well known businessmen they don't need education but they all been detained in the camps. So it's not genocide in terms of the international law. I think it's because a cultural genocide because they're not killing straight away but they separating families from the children and they detaining the adults in internment camps and they forcibly taking the kids to young children to the orphanage style kids detained internment camps too. |
| O'Connor | So they've separated them from their families and they want to re-educate them to be Han Chinese? |
| Turan | Yeah basically brainwashed and denounce our culture and religion, our ethnic identity basically they want us to be like Han Chinese. So I think I definitely call it on cultural genocide |
| O'Connor | You watched the four corners report tonight which also disclosed what they believe to be strong evidence that a number of Uyghurs are being sent to labour camps. Did that shock you? |
| Turan | Not at all because that's been happening to us last how many decades, not in this large scale I wasn't shocked but I feel sad my people. There's no due process, there is no court order, nothing for those people thousands of millions of people detained for nothing. |
| O'Connor | And how did you feel when you heard similar stories to your own of other Australians desperate to find out what happened to their family? |
| Turan | It is sad to hear that even on tonight I was focused by myself and I cried it shouldn't be happening in this day I should I should do more to protect its own citizens now we said never again for this kind of final solution but it still happening in 2019 |
| O'Connor | The international community has very strongly condemned what is happening there is enough being done and China is does not seem to be taking notice. |
| Turan | I don't think it's enough they condemn but we need to we want some action from the international community especially the US and the Western countries |
| O'Connor | Is it is it problematic for you in terms of China as a sovereign nation? It's very difficult for the international community to necessarily intervene. |
| Turan | um I don't think so because the international community is not intervened to divide China or helping us to expand independence. They international committee is talking about or supporting human rights there. According to the academics and scholars to what's happening in East Turkistan some unprecedented, this mass interment is unbelievable. The worst human rights violations in human history. |
| O'Connor | Australian companies have been identified to tonight that have been potentially using labour from Uyghurs that might have been in these internment camps and incentive factories. What should they be doing in your view to make sure that this isn't happening, that they're not taking part in this kind of activity. |
| Turan | of course they are avoiding themselves from these can call it issues or human rights violations or forced labour I think they should investigate more about where their products coming from and if it's from the concentration camps or internment camps I think they should reconsider their business deal with China |
oconnor_turan_interview.txt · Last modified: 2021/09/16 07:02 by admin
